CnXV. It.] CONFUTATION OP IDOLS. 209 



ing to the heavens, air, eai-th, and water ; dreaming that the 

 series of existences formed a kind of square battalion, and 

 that each element contained species of beings cori'esponding 

 to each other, and possessing, as it were, parallel properties."^ 

 And again, men make themselves, as it were, the mirror 

 and rule of nature. It is incredible what a number of 

 idols have been introduced into philosophy by the reduc- 

 tion of natural operations to a correspondence with human 

 actions; that is, by imagining nature acts as man does, 

 which is not much better than the heresy of the anthro- 

 pomorphites, that sprung up in the cells and solitude of 

 ignorant monks ;^ or the opinion of Epicurus, who attributed 

 a human figure to the gods. Velleius the Epicurean need 

 not, therefore, have asked why God should have adorned the 

 heavens with stars and lights, as master of the works 1 For 

 if the grand architect had acted a human part, he would 

 have ranged the stars into some beautiful and elegant orde^, 

 as we see in the vaulted roofs of palaces ; whereas we scarce 

 find among such an infinite multitude of stars any figure 

 either square, tiiangular, or rectilinear ; so great a difference 

 is there betwixt the spirit of man, and the spirit of the 

 universe. 



The idols of the den have their origin from the peculiar 

 nature, both of mind and body, in each person ; as also from 

 education, custom, and the accidents of particular persons. 

 It is a beautiful emblem, that of Plato's den :P for, to drop 

 the exquisite subtilty of the parable, if any one should be 

 educated from his infancy in a dark cave till he wore of full 

 age, and should then of a suddt^ be brought into broaa day- 

 light, and behold this apparatus of the heavens and of things, 

 no doubt but many strange and absurd fancies would arise 

 in his mind ; and though men live indeed in the view of 

 the heavens, yet our minds are confined in the caverns of 

 our bodies ; whence of necessity we receive infinite images 

 of errors and falsehoods, if the mind does but seldom, and 

 only for a short continuance, leave its den, and not constantly 

 dwell in the contemplation of nature, as it were, in the open 

 daylight. And with this emblem of Plato's den agrees the 



■ This hypothesis gave rise to the romance of Lamekls. 

 • Epiphanius, adv. Haer. p. 811, in which the heresy of Audiui if 

 fxplained. * Sepub. vii* 



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